Re: soil
Butch Ragland wrote:
>
> Diane Frederick
>
> The question is what will the end result be? With clay it will be better.
>
> If you have sandy soil then "working it in" can be very detrimental to
> structure of a very sandy soil. Various organisms especially fungus create
> a sticky substance that binds sandy soil together and helps it hold what
> little moisture and nutrients it can hold. Tearing up the natural structure
> with a roto-tiller or the more compulsive double digging is the worse thing
> you could do. I am clearly saying that amending by mixing things with soil
> does not agree with recent research in argronomy.
>
Butch,
You are right about that, except that I've never used a rototiller in
my garden, nor have I ever double-dug (too much work). I guess I should
have mentioned that.
I used the newspaper trick for killing grass and weeds underneath,
added mulch on top. The point is, that later, once you are ready to
plant, and you dig a planting hole, the sand moves, the clay does not.
One must remember, that there was about 6 inches of good humusy loam
over the sand to begin with.
"No harm was done to the fungus in the sand in the making of this
garden" :)
Diane Frederick
Zone 5
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